C&C Firearms

[Steerpike]

Putting this here because it doesn't pertain to C&C rules per se, but to some options I want to include.

I am working on a couple of new adventures, and one of them has a kind of steam-punk feel to it, though I am writing it for C&C rules. I'd like to include some firearms - muzzle loading, flint lock, that sort of thing. Nothing fancy.

Anyone have such rules?

I am considering porting over some of the damage, range, and other rules from Iron Kingdoms, but I thought I'd see if anyone has done anything along these lines already.
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"There are two kinds of people in the world: those with guns, and those who dig." - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

[James M. Ward]

The CODEX OF ERDE has a section on page 203 for gunpowder weapons.

Just a thought,

James M. Ward

[Steerpike]

Thanks, James. I don't have that book. Sounds like I'll have to pick it up
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"There are two kinds of people in the world: those with guns, and those who dig." - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

[concobar]

maybe make firearms damage a ranged touch attack with exploding dice damage.
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[double-c]

I may recommend the following!

Base damage is around d8 + Dexterity Mod
If your game has a focus on firearms it would be nice to put them on equal footing with melee based attacks.

Guns have such a long range it's almost dumb (in game terms) to put a range limit on them. Optionally, any gun fired beyond what you determine to be close range (30ft) is at a penalty (-2, -4), it may also remove the bonus damage received from having a high Dexterity.

Mounting a scope removes some of those penalties.

Iron Sights may help negate some of the penalty, if the gun it equipped with them, or increases the Close Range bubble.

The Gun locks, jams, or misfires on a natty 1, triggering an immediate Intelligence or Wisdom roll to get it working again for the next round, on a failed check they need to spend a move or standard action getting it working again.

Reloading might take a move or standard action.

Have clearly defined rules for cover, and firing form cover. Including blind fire.

Thats all I can think of for now.

[Steerpike]

Thanks, double-c. Those are good ideas.

I'm definitely going to have range penalties. Most of the firearms available in this type of campaign aren't going to be very accurate at long range.

Gives me some good things to think about. Gracias!
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"There are two kinds of people in the world: those with guns, and those who dig." - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

[double-c]

No problem!

Above all else, talk to your players about what kind of gun rules they want to see out of the list, and some the ideas they have in mind.

[mordrene]

the cnc freeport companion has great rules for flintlocks type weapons. and its freeport so by default its awesome

[Christina Stiles]

It's not C&C, but Misfit Studios did a Black Powder arsenal book for SpirosBlaak. There are black powder rules in the SpirosBlaak book, too.
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php? ... ers_id=101
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Christina Stiles

The Misfit Troll Word Wrangler
www.christinastiles.com
www.misfit-studios.com
www.trolllord.com

[TheMetal1]

The Castles & Crusades Freeport Companion by Green Ronin has some great firearms options (104 pages, $12.00 from RPGNow) It's a cool setting and there is a lot in it - NPCs and adventure.

The Haiti Gamer Bundle from RPGNow had a really cool take on Firearms as well. It included Skortched Urf Studio's product called Fantasy Firearms (10 pages, $1.99) Lots of interesting magical options in that one.

Turns out that there is Fantasy Firearms II: Double Barreled. I haven't tried that one out yet, but it looks interesting.

Anyway these are some good PDF options for you. Hope this helps!
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R is among the most menacing of sounds. Thats why they call it murder, not muckduck. DWIGHT SHRUTE, The Office

[Stainless]

This is an excellent thread as I was just wondering the other day if there was a good system to simulate David Gemmell's Rigante books which is sword & sorcery with flintlocks. Hmmm, maybe I could run such a campaign...
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Drug of choice...coffee

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[serleran]

Are you looking for realistic or wazoo-blammo?
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If it matters, leave a message at the beep.
Serl's Corner

[Aneoth of Ironwood]

Codex of Erde is well worth the small cost for copies selling on E-Bay these days.

Less than a burger and fries certainly.

I purchased my first copy several years ago (nearly new) and recently picked up a second copy for $4, plus SH from E-Bay.

And as stated above anything Freeport is indeed awesome stuff.

[Steerpike]

Stainless wrote:
This is an excellent thread as I was just wondering the other day if there was a good system to simulate David Gemmell's Rigante books which is sword & sorcery with flintlocks. Hmmm, maybe I could run such a campaign...

Seems to me you could take a lot from the Iron Kingdoms to do something like this. Of course you wouldn't want all the info on mechanika, but I think the basics are there to make a world that is about the same level as that of the Rigante. By default Iron Kingdoms has a higher level of magic, but you don't need to use all that.

Plus you get some cool monsters, like the Pistol Wraith
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"There are two kinds of people in the world: those with guns, and those who dig." - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

[Steerpike]

serleran wrote:
Are you looking for realistic or wazoo-blammo?

Leaning more toward realistic, but the weapons would still have to be useful within the context of the normal C&C weapons that exist in the same world.
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"There are two kinds of people in the world: those with guns, and those who dig." - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

[Steerpike]

Aneoth of Ironwood wrote:
Codex of Erde is well worth the small cost for copies selling on E-Bay these days.

Less than a burger and fries certainly.

I purchased my first copy several years ago (nearly new) and recently picked up a second copy for $4, plus SH from E-Bay.

Make sure the copy you get (if you decide to buy one) has the map insert included.

And as stated above anything Freeport is indeed awesome stuff.

Thanks...I will check both out. I've never used any of the Freeport material.
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"There are two kinds of people in the world: those with guns, and those who dig." - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

[anglefish]

Freeport +1 Currently use those rules and having a blast ...
If you Google "iron kingdoms guns pdf," you can find the original Iron Kingdom pdf gun freebie.

I'd like to look at the Edre gun rules sometime, though.

[Steerpike]

I'l check out the Freeport stuff.

I already own all the Iron Kingdoms materials, just thought I'd look for more than one take on fire arms.
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"There are two kinds of people in the world: those with guns, and those who dig." - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

[koralas]

Steerpike wrote:
Putting this here because it doesn't pertain to C&C rules per se, but to some options I want to include.

I am working on a couple of new adventures, and one of them has a kind of steam-punk feel to it, though I am writing it for C&C rules. I'd like to include some firearms - muzzle loading, flint lock, that sort of thing. Nothing fancy.

Anyone have such rules?

I am considering porting over some of the damage, range, and other rules from Iron Kingdoms, but I thought I'd see if anyone has done anything along these lines already.

A couple of things to keep in mind.

Firearms are incredibly expensive early on.

When talking muskets, think in a few ways... Matchlock vs. Snaplock/Snaphance vs. Wheellock vs. Flintlock vs. percussion caps, and perhaps more importantly, smooth bore, and rifled. Practical rifled muskets for general infantry use came into play around the Civil War, and were an incredible leap forward over the smooth bore. Rifles already existed, but took 2-3 times longer to load due to the much larger shot that was used. The Rifled muskets of the Civil War became practical because of the Minie Ball. The Minie ball was conical in shape to make it easier to fit in the barrel of the rifle, and had a slightly hollowed base that allowed it expand when shot, thus tightly fitting into the rifled grooves of the barrel.

The first issue is the firing mechanism.

Matchlock - Unreliable, misfires 15% of the time (1-3 on d20), gets worse the damper the environment, the match cord must remain burning

Snaplock/Snaphance, Wheellock - Unreliable, misfires frequently (20% 1-4 on d20)

Flintlock - Unreliable, misfires about 15% 1-3 on d20) of the time

Percussion cap - Reliable, misfires about 1% (1 on d20) of the time

A note on these misfires, use the to hit roll to determine if it misfires. Even if the character would normally hit the result is a misfire. Also, this is not necessarily a catastrophic misfire, it could simply be that it did not fire, pull the firing mechanism back again (replace the percussion cap if using one) and try again. On a second misfire I would say the weapon is jammed.

Feel free to make a call on how you would rule catastrophic misfires, though they should be fairly rare. (I would probably require that a second roll is made after a misfire, and if a second misfire is rolled, it has a catastrophic effect. Further if the weapon has been determined to be jammed, apply a +5 to the misfire chance when determining if a catastrophic event happens. However, if using a matchlock, always use the standard misfire chance as the base, do not include the penalties for dampness)

The second issue is the accuracy.

Smooth bore - Accurate to 30-50 yards, after that if firing into a mass of beings 100 yard range with no penalties (unless over 50 yards trying to pick out an individual), penalties should mount quickly, perhaps -1 every 10 yards beyond 50 when firing at an individual, and -1 every 10 after 100 when firing at massed troops?

Rifled bore w/minie ball - Accurate to about 200 yards, start piling on penalties after that at a rate of -1 for each 10 yards?

Rifled bore with proper sized musket balls - I don't have any real stats on these, perhaps give the same range as a minie ball, with -1 for every 15 yards?

Damage

I would probably look at a either a d8 or d10 damage, though leaning towards d8. You can stage up damage based on the size of the musket ball, and to give it extra punch, on any successful hit, add together the to-hit and damage rolls, and on a 20+ the bullet can do any number of things. Knock the target down, maybe hit a bone, causing an additional d6 damage as bone fragment enlarge the exit wound. You could use a graduating scale and include vital organs being hit, bleeding damage, even the possiblity of requiring a save vs. death. Be creative, but be fair.

I would probably also permit a penetration value for musket balls, perhaps a value of 10 out to 50 yards, declining by 1 for each 10 yards beyond that. This penetration value negates the ac adjustment of armor only (not dex or magical adjustments). This is representative of musket balls penetrating breastplates on the battle fields at 100 yards, and at 50 yards going through both the front and rear plates of unfortunate pikemen!

And then there was the reloading issue...

Muskets are slow to reload. Very slow in fact. A good soldier, after much drilling could get 3 shots per minute. With a C&C combat round being 6 seconds, that equates to one shot every three rounds. And remember this was shooting for effect, not necessarily effective shooting. Meaning, that while 3 shots per minute for a highly trained soldier will allow at least some time for aiming, the average soldier would mostly have time to reload, point with minimal aiming adjustments, and shoot, while an average un-trained person could possibly get loaded and thrust the weapon in the general direction, so they would definitely fall into the 2 shots/minute, unless you want to start targeting the people behind them Also don't forget, the most accurate rifles use larger shot than normal, and while they have a higher accuracy, they will take 2-3x longer to load.

OK, these thoughts are a bit disjointed, but hopefully clear enough to see what I was thinking.

[edit] One thing I forgot, you should look at allowing for bayonets, turning the rifle into a short spear, and also allow the rifle to be used as a staff. Though if using it in melee, give it some sort of chance to be damaged. Damage can be such as increasing chances of misfire, while imposing penalties to hit, or even rendering the weapon unable to fire.

Also funny to note that the system put two asterisks in the word commonly used to describe the pulling back the firing mechanism! so I changed the wording above...

[anglefish]

Just some comments on actual player usage of guns in the game. ... let me rephase that.
The Rogue and the Fighter both have multiple pistols. They use firearms in the style of a boarding action. Quick draw a loaded pistol, fire, and drop it to either draw another pistol or a melee weapon depending on the distance involved.

The wizard tried to use rifles when he was too low level for Fireball, but he got frustrated with his frequent misses and stuck to spells that hit more often, but did less damage.

Quote:
Rules overview: The Freeport rules have the "reload every three rounds" rule and I allow a SIEGE check to reduce that to every other round (I tend to run a cinematic game.) In most cases, firearms have superior damage compared to melee, but also have a misfire table. While it does take a few unlucky rolls to have a gun explode in a PC's face, it has happened. (Much to everyone's amusement.)

[Steerpike]

Thanks koralas - great information. I definitely intend to incorporate the misfires, range limitations, and reloading times. I appreciate you taking the time to provide all that.
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"There are two kinds of people in the world: those with guns, and those who dig." - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

[Steerpike]

@angelfish:

yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out, and whether any characters opt for guns as a primary weapon, or whether they're cool to have but the trusty old sword or axe still predominate.
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"There are two kinds of people in the world: those with guns, and those who dig." - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

[anglefish]

I find that until guns fire every round, players aren't interested in using them for more than a first volley.

On the other hand, when guns can fire every round, you can usually kiss hand to hand combat good bye.

[koralas]

Steerpike wrote:
Thanks koralas - great information. I definitely intend to incorporate the misfires, range limitations, and reloading times. I appreciate you taking the time to provide all that.

No problem, I had to look up a few of the items, but it is well worth it. I have been a history buff since I was in grade school. It has served me well in all the different forms of gaming I have enjoyed over the years. In fact, I actually end up researching even deeper on various things because of pulling it into games. Hrm, remind you of some comments from a different thread in these boards? Something not specifically in the book so you... #gasp# look it up. Back in the day (said in my best old man's voice), that meant encyclopedia's, and the library. Now we have google to make it even easier! Of course, that is why it was mostly just the geeks (a badge to wear proudly) that played back then...